SE-943 "The unluckiest ship"
Strange Encounter #943 "The unluckiest ship" Explanation Well unlike many other SE's this one is a very publicly known event but is worth noting due to the sheer amount of misfortune suffered by a single ship. Official event The Grand Duchy of Julithar expanding their navy commissioned dozens of new Scar destroyers. In 304 DoS the Scar destroyed "Flint tooth" DD-1313 started construction. The ships long stint of bad luck began here as it was plagued with delays taking 3 years to finish construction rather then the typical 17 months that was expected. During its launch ceremony the bottle didn't break when hit against its hull, a sign of bad luck. After it was launched in February 8th 307 DoS under captain Telmic Moraa and encountered not one but two electrical storms in it's first 3 months of service. The second damaging the ships navigational array and forcing the ship to navigate back to port with star charts instead. After the Flint Tooth was fixed up and sent back on patrol in June of 307 DoS captain Telmic Moraa suffered a stroke and died well in the infirmary on the way back to port. Captain Juliana Mannin was transferred to command of the Flint Tooth in July of 307 DoS. The ship suffered minor issues over it's next 5 years of service, being struck by debris that should have been detected by its navigational array which would become a reoccurring theme. In 312 DoS the Karadachia conflict began and the Flint Tooth was assigned to help escort the first strike groups to Karadachia. During this time they were doing drills and accidentally fired 88 70mm rounds at the Valkary carrier Shoro Remono when a bridge officer failed to switch his console to test mode. The officer was court martial and discharged from duty. When Grand Duchy command believed that the Mass Alliance's Office of Strategic Naval Intelligence (OSNI) was secretly supplying the Kara rebels many ships were dispatched along probable routs that any ship entering the system would have to take. The Flint Tooth was sent out to one of the lower priority routs. The Flint Tooth encountered what they believed to be an OSNI stealth ship and pursed it, firing over 1,800 70mm rounds and 4 100cm rounds at the believed target. After an 6 hour attack they finally received back up from a Cobra frigate that identified the target as no more then a rock that had drifted into the system. Captain Juliana Mannin was brought to a court martial and found guilty of gross miss use of military resources as well as incompetence. Captain Juliana Mannin was replaced with second lieutenant Moric Doberm as no officer's wanted to transfer to the Flint Tooth and the ship was assigned to communication relay and fire support (fire support was unusable thanks to Karadacia's thick atmosphere) in mid orbit around Karadachia. At this time there was so many transfer requests off the Flint Tooth, they became so numerous that command needed to mark all requests from the Flint Tooth with the lowest possible priority. This caused an issue as the navigational array failed again and parts from the lighting system were used to repaired it, requests for new parts to fix the lighting system were continuously marked as lowest priority. This lead to the crew, who were already stressed from their time serving on the Flint Tooth, began seeing the ghostly figure of captain Telic Moraa in the darkness; farther adding to the stress of the crew. On march 3rd 315 DoS the ship was struck yet again by debris that should have been detected by it's navigational array. This time necessitating a space walk in order to examine the outer hull where it was hit. Privet Talam Jogia volunteered for this job and went out to examine the damage. During her space walk she encountered the ghostly image of captain Telic Moraa and lost her connection to the ship, her line tethering her to the ship broke and left her adrift in space. A team was quickly scrambled to rescue her but she had spent more then 3 minutes on recycled air and was at risk of brain damage. She was transferred to the Shoro Remono for medical checkup and found mentally unfit to serve suffering from traumatic stress and potential brain damage and honorably discharged one month later. Over the next year it managed to only suffer 3 incidents: struck by the third piece of debris that it should have detected by its navigational array, a drunken altercation between its crew that resulted in 2 crew members were discharged after suffering massive head wounds and lastly they believed they found another OSNI stealth ship and pursed it (firing only 300 rounds at it before giving up the chase). Disciplinary action was not taken for any of these incidents because all requests out of the Flint Tooth were still being marked as lowest priority. On April 28th 316 DoS the Flint Tooth failed to check in, no investigation was launched for 6 days due to the low priority it was given. When a ship finally searched the area the Flint Tooth could not be found, the final battle of the Karadachia conflict took priority and no search was launched following this. On September 30th 316 DoS, 5 months after the end of the Karadachia conflict ended, the Flint Tooth was found split in two and spread over 500 km's over Karadachia's moon. In one final bit of bad luck for the Flint Tooth the ships black box was lost as it's transceiver failed to go off. The investigation into what happened to the Flint Tooth, well the reason that it was in orbit of the moon was not found out it was reasoned that a coolant tank ruptured and tore the ship in two. The two major theories are that it saw either what it believed to be an OSNI stealth ship or an actual OSNI stealth ship and pursued it to the moon before either being hit by the ship or spontaneously suffering a coolant tank rupture. It was noted that OSNI's stealth ship the Revenant class lacks any weapons to do such damage and would have been unable to carry additional weapons if it was delivering supplies to Karadachia. Investigation Director E and Director D have both sealed all file information regarding OSNI operations during the Karadachia conflict but maintain that no OSNI ship was operational in the area at the time.